Astrocytes derived from neural progenitor cells are susceptible to Zika virus infection.

Zika virus (ZIKV) was first isolated in 1947. From its isolation until 2007, symptoms of ZIKV-caused disease were limited (e.g.

Construction of a Chikungunya Virus, Replicon, and Helper Plasmids for Transfection of Mammalian Cells.

The genome of Alphaviruses can be modified to produce self-replicating RNAs and virus-like particles, which are useful virological tools. In this work, we generated three plasmids for the transfection of mammalian cells: an infectious clone of Chikungunya virus (CHIKV), one that codes for the structural proteins (helper plasmid), and another one that codes nonstructural proteins (replicon plasmid). All of these plasmids contain a reporter gene (mKate2).